Liberty's Memorial Day Review (photo heavy) - Including Extra Days in San Juan!!

[trippingpara]

For all of your cruise ship fans: here's a shot of Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas sitting at the main port in San Juan (different pier from where Carnival docks at)

 

[trippingpara]

After landing and collecting our luggage, we made our way out into the extremely hot and sticky Caribbean sun. Okay, so it wasn’t super-hot and humid but to us New Englanders that had just left a cool and brisk Boston, anything over 55˚ is considered to be hot and sticky. We quickly made our way over to the taxi stand for our ride to Chateau Cervantes in Old San Juan. Cost for the 3 of us with 4 bags and 2 carry-ons was $26.00. The cost breakdown is: $19.00 to Old San Juan, $2.00 gas surcharge, $1.00 airport fee and $1.00 per bag (4 bags = $4.00). There is no additional charge for up to 5 passengers. It is a $2.00 per person charge for anybody over 5 passengers.

 

The drive took about 15-20 minutes before we pulled up to the doors of the Cervantes. We dragged our luggage inside to a nice cool lobby and welcoming smiles from the front desk. It was about noon and our room wasn’t ready yet. No problem. They tagged our luggage with our room number and held it so we could tour the city. The lady at the first desk was extremely helpful and pleasant and quickly grabbed a map and showed us the must see places and where we should stop to eat. We knew most of the places from our previous trip to San Juan but it was still a nice refresher.

 

We thanked her and then headed out to explore Old San Juan. Here are some general sights of Old San Juan:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 14, 2015 by trippingpara

[trippingpara]

A few more shots...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[trippingpara]

I did mention that there'd be globs and globs of photos, right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[seafoy]

Love the review so far...especially the photos. We were in San Juan last spring for a volleyball tournament my daughter was participating in....re living our trip thru your photos:)! Wish we had had the chance to sail on the Liberty while it was in Port Canaveral, but in a couple of short weeks will be cruising on the Sunshine!

[bda73]

High quality photos, may i ask what camera are you using

 

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[trippingpara]

High quality photos, may i ask what camera are you using

 

Being the camera geek that I am, we are using a variety of cameras. All of the aerial photos were taken from my Samsung Note 4 while the majority of the land photos were a mixture of my Sony dSLR and Lady Trip's Olympus TG-3 with a few from Trippette's iPhone. Our upcoming underwater photos are a mixture from the Olympus TG-3 (love that camera!) and my GoPro 4.

[Taylors]

Excited to read more! We are considering this cruise for our next :)

[bda73]

We just purchased the GoPro4 for the upcoming trip and use two differnet nikons, one a underwater, and the other with an extended zoom lense.

 

One other question, and i hope you and the other fellow readers dont mind my questions, the old fort what is the price (if any) of admission

 

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[trippingpara]

Excited to read more! We are considering this cruise for our next :)

 

You won't be disappointed. We've done this itinerary twice and we could do it another 10 times!! Great ship and the islands are phenomenal! Some people complain about only having one sea day, but I think it works out better without a bunch of them on this cruise. If you really want to rest, just pick any one of the beautiful beaches and rest up. Personally, I'd rather be sipping on an exotic cocktail laying on a beach with palm trees swaying in the breeze while staring out at perfectly azure blue waters then fighting with all of the chogs for a lounger on deck! But that's me, I'm kooky like that.

[mom22tinks]

Loving the review!

[trippingpara]

We just purchased the GoPro4 for the upcoming trip and use two differnet nikons, one a underwater, and the other with an extended zoom lense.

 

One other question, and i hope you and the other fellow readers dont mind my questions, the old fort what is the price (if any) of admission

 

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

 

Those are some good cameras you got there. You'll have some great photos I'm sure!

 

I certainly don't mind the questions and I'm sure the fellow readers appreciate the questions as well. There are two forts in Old San Juan: El Morro (which are in my photos here) and Castillo San Cristóbal (which is the larger of the two). You can either pay $3 per castle (they are actually called a castle or a castillo not a fort) or $5 for both castles and is valid for one week. Pay the $5, its worth visiting them both!

 

We didn't visit the castles this time, but we did on our last cruise and you can see photos and comments on both of them in my previous review which is linked in my signature line.

[bda73]

We have 2 days in san juan before the cruise and an additional day afterwards, our thoughts were to aee the castle, possibly the rainforest and the illumination bay.

 

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[trippingpara]

We have 2 days in san juan before the cruise and an additional day afterwards, our thoughts were to aee the castle, possibly the rainforest and the illumination bay.

 

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

 

Sounds like a good plan! We saw the castles and the rainforest on our last trip (both are discussed with photos in my previous review) and this year we did the bio bay (that will be coming up in this review!).

[tawaik]

Nice review. I was laughing at some of your comments :D

 

Loved the Liberty, want to go back on her!

[cessnabmw]

Really amazing review so far and love the photos!

 

We are looking at booking a Journeys cruise on Sunshine that leaves from SJU in December.

 

Planning to be there 3 days the cruise to get away for the Freezing and Snowy Toronto! Would love some tips on where to stay, what do do, etc.

 

We were there last Dec while on the Freedom. Loved San Juan! Did both forts and SJU during the day stop there.

[trippingpara]

Really amazing review so far and love the photos!

 

We are looking at booking a Journeys cruise on Sunshine that leaves from SJU in December.

 

Planning to be there 3 days the cruise to get away for the Freezing and Snowy Toronto! Would love some tips on where to stay, what do do, etc.

 

We were there last Dec while on the Freedom. Loved San Juan! Did both forts and SJU during the day stop there.

 

Lucky you! I'd love to be in SJ in December! As for where to stay, it really depends on where you want to be in San Juan. There are 3 main areas to stay: Old San Juan, Condado or Isle Verde (these are in order from west to east across San Juan). If history is your thing, stay in Old San Juan. If you prefer beaches and/or nightlife, then I'd suggest either Condado or Isle Verde. To me, Condado has better resorts and is still very close to Old San Juan for an easy visit and has a couple small beaches, but Isle Verde has the better beaches and many consider the better resorts (really a matter of tastes). We've stayed in OSJ and Condado. We'll be staying in Isle Verde next time!

 

As for things to do, it really depends on what you like. I can only really comment on what we've done but there is still much more that we want to do. We've toured all over OSJ (our favorite haunt - where some of the best restaurants are!), toured the forts, and enjoyed the evening bazaar on Paseo De La Princesa. We've kayaked the Bio Bay (must not miss!), toured El Yunque National Park (only rainforest in US Park Service) and flew out to Culebra Island (Flamenco Beach is breathtaking!). Some of the things we want to do in the future is the Arecibo Observatory/Camuy Caverns as well as travel over to Ponce, Puerto Rico.

 

In this review, I'll be discussing Chateau Cervantes (OSJ) and Hilton Caribe (Condado) for hotels and the Bio Bay, Casa Bacardi (rum distillery) and Culebra Island. My previous review (found in my signature) discusses Casa Blanca hotel in OSJ, the forts and El Yunque rainforest.

 

If you have anything specific that you'd like to know, please don't hesitate to ask!

[pghsteelerfan]

I've been looking forward to your Liberty review since I really enjoyed your Victory review. We've done most of the major itineraries Carnival offers and also a Mexican Riviera on RCI a while back, but this is definitely our favorite itinerary and we'll eventually be doing it again, that's just a matter of "when". I am really enjoying what you have so far and we have similar pictures from the plane flying into San Juan. Your pictures are beautiful! I'm really looking forward to following along and am really excited to see about Culebra. A week in Puerto Rico is also something I'd love to do. Thank you for taking the time to do another review and again, I'm looking forward to more.

[silvercrikhix]

Really enjoying your review & your sense of humor.

You have some fabulous unique photos!

Keep it coming Mr Trip :D

[Baatman]

Looking forward to the photos.

[BcIcemen]

Can you post photos of the menu's? Thank you

[BcIcemen]

My son is a Hokie. He graduated in 2005. He was a Marching Virginian. The only one of 330 from NY State while he was there.

[aztekpm]

We did this cruise in May and I agree with you, the itinerary, the ship and the staff make it a wonderful cruise. We had anytime dining, 8 Top so had the same table every night with the same staff and they were fantastic. MY drink waiter and I call him that as it seemed he was always around me right from our embarkation lunch, was Robert. He was on the Lido and AT dining and he always greeted me by name and asked... sprite zero, Miami Vice or Funship special??? LOL he knew my tastes well and very quickly, though I did keep him on his toes and switch it up every now and then!

 

Have to say the Filet Mignon on our cruise was fantastic, but that could have been luck of the draw/supply. Agree with the food grade, although we never ate anything except breakfast at the buffet.

 

Like you I am a 'reformed' smoker and have almost the same problem you do with smoke now. There's no way I could smoke again, I did try it a few years ago at a casino and I know my face turned green. I honestly thought I was going to be sick after lighting it! I didn't find it too bad on the ship either and was a little worried after some of the reviews. Perhaps we didn't have as many smokers as their cruises, but was pleasantly surprised it wasn't as bad as we feared.

 

Some of us did visit the casino (often) and actually had some luck, my Sister & BIL managed to come out ahead. Me, I was down a couple hundred by the end of the cruise, but managed to get the drinks on us card on the 3rd day (sea day). I won enough each day to keep playing mainly on their dime and that was fine with me!

 

I want to do this itinerary again as I had some issues with my neck during this cruise, so didn't get to do everything I wanted to ... until then, I will live vicariously thru your review!

Edited June 14, 2015 by aztekpm

[cinsu]

Some of the things we want to do in the future is the Arecibo Observatory/Camuy Caverns as well as travel over to Ponce, Puerto Rico.

 

Nobody ever talks about Arecibo! I am stalking your review as we leave in 19 days for the same sailing. We plan to go to Arecibo on Sunday before we board. I was beginning to think we were weird for wanting to go there!

 

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[kmarie10531]

Loving the review so far and your photos are top notch . I actually did this cruise a week after you , probably my favorite thus far .